


Catching Up with Old Friends

by PrettyArbitrary



Series: Blood Oaths [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood and Violence, M/M, Vampire Hunters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 16:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11924319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyArbitrary/pseuds/PrettyArbitrary
Summary: Ana's spent a lot of time wondering what became of Jack and Gabriel by the time she finally finds out.





	Catching Up with Old Friends

Ana's spent a lot of time wondering what became of Jack and Gabriel by the time she finally finds out.

She'd figured they were dead. They all had. Go up against a vampire and don't come back? Generally you can guess what happened. But they were two of her best friends, and it never rested right with her, the not knowing, so she kept looking.

She finds Jack first.

He's kicking ass on a pack of three werewolves when she finds him. She followed the gunfire, and by the time she gets there, two of them have holes in various important parts of their anatomy, although it's not enough to kill them quite yet, and Jack is putting a second hole in one of them with a shotgun at point blank range.

He's wearing a mask, something of odd design clearly meant to hide as well as protect his face. It doesn't matter; she'd know him anywhere. She's swamped with relief, followed by a terrible sense of worry because there's no sign of Gabriel and there's only one reason she can think of why Jack would be fighting alone. A reason he might not have returned to them even though he survived. 

It’s a dangerous line of work they’re in, and she knows she isn’t the only one of their friends who’s worried about what would happen to them both if one of them was lost.

Then one of the wolves gets a bit too close. Jack grabs it by the face, flips over its head from a standing start, and drives it into the ground on its back before breaking its neck, all in one fluid movement. Cold dread flows down her spine.

He shoots the third, uninjured one in the head, and then spins to drive his hand into the gut wound on the last one. He reaches deep, blood gushing out around his arm while it screams, and then rips free, a clump of black-red gore in his hand.

He waits until the beast has fallen to the ground, a twisted pile of bloody fur, before he tosses the lump of muscle away. She watches, frozen, as he absently raises his gory hand to his mouth and licks at the blood.

Then he looks in her direction. "You might as well come out."

She bites her lip, considering. He waits, staring as though he knows exactly where she is, until she finally steps out, her long rifle with her own custom ammo at the ready. "Move and I'll put a bullet through your heart," she says, as flat as if it weren't killing her to aim at one of her oldest friends. "If it still beats." He's not a vampire, she can tell that. But after those stunts, he's sure as hell not human either.

Jack's mouth twists but he stays still. "I'm still alive, Ana." 

She's not stupid enough to get too close to him, but she's always had eagle eyes. When she's stopped and settled her stance, he reaches up slowly to take off his mask and turns to let her see his face clearly. He opens his mouth, curling his upper lip just enough to let her see all she needs to.

She exhales. He's alive. He really is. But she knows the subtle long curve of those canines. The barrel of her gun wavers the slightest bit, not enough to give him an opening, before her grip firms again. "Who did this to you? Where's..." Her voice cracks. She thinks her heart might go with it. "Where's Gabriel?"

If she can kill the one who made a thrall of Jack, she can set him free. But if Jack was bound, it could only have been over Gabriel's dead body.

"Gabriel..." Jack swallows. Looks away. For a moment, he seems about to continue, seems to be struggling with something. She waits, but he says nothing. 

Of course he doesn't. If he's in a vampire's thrall, he can't act to endanger his master. If she can't free him, she should kill him. It's her duty. Vampires are too dangerous. A vampire with one of the best hunters of his day in its power? Unthinkable.

She never takes her eyes off him, but for a moment, lost in the concept of killing Jack Morrison, she takes her mind off him. And then, he's gone.

After that, she doesn't stop looking for him. And that's how she finds Gabriel.

Jack is good at hiding his trail when he knows he's being followed. In all humility, few others besides her could even stand a chance of finding him again. She's lost him more than once, but each time--as much because she knows him so well as anything--she manages to pick it up again eventually. Twice she's gotten close enough to lay eyes on him, but never close enough to speak again. Never close enough to say the things she needs to before she can bring herself to put a bullet in him.

She's on his trail again. She knows he's close, even though she hasn't seen him yet. He moves at night as often as during the day, but that isn't so unusual. They're vampire hunters. Their job takes them into the dark sometimes. He's in the night tonight, but she realizes too late that he's not the only one when a shadow detaches from a tree and engulfs her.

"What will you do when you find him?" it says in her ear.

Too close to draw her gun. Too late for anything. She drops her knife. She knows that voice. "No." But denial does nothing. She knows that voice.

It laughs softly. "Yes." She's going to die. "Oh stop, Ana," it says— _he_ says--testily, as if he can read her thoughts. "It's not as if I asked for this. I put my life into his hands and he chose this. And until he comes to his senses, I'm not going to brook any interference with him." Something dreadfully cold and sharp slips around her throat. "Not even from a dear old friend."

Gabriel. Gabriel is the vampire. Gabriel. His name beats in her head and she breathes on each beat, trying to control herself. He can smell her fear, she knows. She's panicking. Both of them, on the demons' side? She has to escape. She has to warn the others. "So he knows?" she asks, and if her voice cracks, let him believe it's from the fear rather than the grief.

Gabriel laughs again. It sounds bitter. "Who do you think enthralled him?"

"Why?!" She's so shocked--appalled; betrayed, for their sakes--that she wrenches herself in his grasp to turn and face him. "You loved each other! Is there not enough human left in you to at least remember what he meant to you?"

This time, bitterness isn't enough of a word to encompass the scraping pain in his laugh. "That's between us, don't you think? But I'm free. And if you plot any harm to either of us, Ana..."

"What would you do?" she asks, as carefully as if she were walking across a frozen river. "Would you kill me? Can you do that?" Is he that far gone? Would that be any worse than enslaving his husband?

He stares at her for a long moment, glowing red eyes boring into her in the dark. She tries desperately to tell whether that stillness is a hesitation. "For him, I would do anything," he says at last. She has to strain to hear it. He's almost quieter than the crickets around them, but not soft. There's no softness in those words at all.

Same as it always was. She's always known they would commit atrocities for each other, if it came to that. So how did it come to this? "I don't understand," she says. She knows as she speaks those words that he's defeated her, to ask for explanations rather than reach for a weapon.

"You don't need to." The cold grip around her throat loosens. He knows as well as she does. "This is personal, between the two of us. All you need to know is that I won't let go of him until I'm done with him."

He'll never be done with him. Whatever's become of them, it's clear enough that hasn't changed. "And what about him, Gabriel?" she finally asks softly. "What about what he wants?"

The shadowy shape detaches entirely from her. "He'll do as he pleases, just like he always has." Takes a step back, another. As it goes, it resolves into Gabriel. In many ways he looks the same as ever. She half-lifts a hand toward him without even thinking. He's never looked this sad before, so careworn and drawn. "There's only one thing I'd ever deny him, Ana. It just so happens to be the thing the stubborn ass wants. But I can give him as long as he needs to get over that."

A breeze makes the tree branches dance and the shadows toss. When they fall still again, he's gone.


End file.
